Again you miss the point, you can spend a long time thinking about whether or not humans should "exist", but your thinking is fatally flawed, we do exist, so why question whether or not we should.

Quote:

We developed the ability to think for the purpose or preserving this life. And that's the only purpose humans have, reproduce and spread.

Where did you get that crazy idea from, self preservation exists in all creatures whether or not they are clever like us, so that point goes up in flames. And again our purpose is not to reproduce and spread, we dont have a purpose, we exist, and yes we do reproduce and spread, open your eyes to Darwinian natural selection, every living organism on this planet and those that date back for the last ~2 billion years has done exactly that, its not a purpose, its simply "life".

Again you miss the point, you can spend a long time thinking about whether or not humans should "exist", but your thinking is fatally flawed, we do exist, so why question whether or not we should.

Quote:

We developed the ability to think for the purpose or preserving this life. And that's the only purpose humans have, reproduce and spread.

Where did you get that crazy idea from, self preservation exists in all creatures whether or not they are clever like us, so that point goes up in flames. And again our purpose is not to reproduce and spread, we dont have a purpose, we exist, and yes we do reproduce and spread, open your eyes to Darwinian natural selection, every living organism on this planet and those that date back for the last ~2 billion years has done exactly that, its not a purpose, its simply "life".

Andy

I never said that such purpose is exclusively for humans. It's the purpose of every organism. Maybe we should discuss what the word 'purpose' means. I'm talking about the purpose as a species, not on individual level. It's tattoo'd to our brain that reproduction is the pinnacle of life. Everything in our bodies is telling us to reproduce but some of us want to fight back and not give in.

Now that I think about it, if we couldn't think and would live only by reflexes, I'm not sure whether we'd be more 'successful' as a species or if we'd be on the brink of extinction.

In the particular subject that we are discussing, and specifically the "purpose" of human existance from the lowest biological factor is to survive, and to multiply.

From the perspective of the "purpose" of human's existance at a much higher level than that of any organisms "purpose" to survive and multiply, there is not.

God is an interesting and now worthless human created fantasy to fill the enormous gaps of knowlege that our species used to have, now the gaps are filled to a massive level, we also know that we dont have a "purpose" of the kind that was carefully created for us by religions to keep us in order.

Therefore I choose my own purpose, and where possible I dictate my life and my future.

If you (Scoop) have also been trying to say what I have just tried to make clear then I apologise, I must have missed your particular meaning of the word in this context.

quality of life is better for most people than it has ever been in history.and yet those people complain

And we delude ourselves in order to cope, then hop on our little hamster wheel and chase the dragon. The fact is that life for most people is very costly (suffering) and then you die, for no innate purpose. Life is an imposition and the risk is not yours to take; procreation is playing Russian roulette with somebody else's life.

Fayd wrote:

btw, if life sucks and isn't worth living, then die. "and decrease the surplus population!"

Then you don't understand the difference between continuation of a life and the question of starting/creating life.

Fayd wrote:

topics like these always strike me as funny.

Really, do you think someone like Derek (see below) would find this topic funny?

The search for a rational, ethical reason for creating another human goes on without success. Ask someone why they plan to procreate, and they’ll most likely offer one of the reasons listed below.

Why People Breed List

Reason given - I can’t help it, it’s a biological urge.Real reason - Unexamined motivations.Suggested alternative - Institutions await those who can’t control their biological urges.

Want to give our parents grandchildren.Still seeking parental approval.Live your own life and encourage your parents to do the same.

I just love children.Out of touch with inner child, and with existing children.Adopt, step, and foster parenting. Big Brother/Sister. Work with children, teach.

I have superior human genes.Doesn’t recognize an oxymoron. Megalomania.Do great things with your genes, rather than expecting the next cultured batch to do it.

Need help on farm or in family business.Too cheap to hire help. Child labor laws inconvenient.Mechanization gives faster return on investment.

Want someone to care for me in my old age.Fear of aging. Exploitative personality.Save money and prepare for retirement. Be nice to people so they will visit you in the home. Build social support network.

Pregnancy and childbirth are life experiences.Life choices limited by social indoctrination.Rent pregnancy simulator. Choose different life experiences.

A good family is essential to career advancement and strong standing in the community.Social insecurity. Wants trophy children to improve social status.Rent children from talent agency on special occasions. Have white picket fence installed.

We want to create a life which embodies our love for each other.Ego, times two, minus imagination, equals three plus.Garden. Adopt a stream, trail, or hiway. Rescue animals. Protect & restore ecosystems to embody love.

I want my kids (who don’t exist yet) to have all the things I didn’t have.Unfulfilled childhood desires and fantasies.Deal with regrets & make best of life. Provide for existing children.

To carry on family name.Trying to please Dad. Duped by bloodline superstition.Create something enduring & give it family name. Donate blood to pass on bloodline.

Want to see a little me.Self-absorption. Lack of ego gratification.Order custom-made, life-like doll. Create a gratifying life of your own.

I love babies.Short-sighted view of reality.Babies soon turn into children, then adults. Infant care work is available.

Being a mother is a woman’s highest calling.Beguiled into believing compliance is noble free choice.Motherhood, and fatherhood, may be achieved without breeding. Many children wait for good homes.

My child could find a way to save the world.“Mother of God” complex. (Also applies to men).If you want something done right, do it yourself.

We’d like to try for a boy/girl this time.Ego extension. Gender identity insecurity. Dissatisfaction with existing offspring.Appreciate who you have, they might resent their sibling whose gender is preferred.

I just want to.Just wants to.Choosing to breed precludes most other things you’ll just want to do.

I want someone who will love me and not leave me.Fear of rejection. Unresolved relationship issues.Give love to get love. Accept change and deal with loss.

Our economy needs young workers to replace retired workers.Willing to sacrifice offspring to gods of National Economy.Automation reduces need for wage slaves. Consider rights of unconceived to stay that way.

The world needs more of us or we’ll be outnumbered.Elitism. Xenophobia. Eugenics easier to conceal than genocide.Convert others to your views so there’ll be one more of your kind and one less of Them.

We may as well, the planet is doomed anyway.Nihilistic natalism.Consider ethics of sentencing an innocent person to life, and death, in ecological collapse.

I’d like to achieve a sense of immortality.Fear of death and non-existence.Accept mortality. Spread memes not genes. Socrates’ heirs are not apparent, but his ideas linger strong.

My biological clock has gone off.Women’s normal heightened sexual desire in 30s & 40s difficult to accept in puritanical societies.Disarm that culturally-implanted mental time bomb. It’s okay to make love and not babies.

I don’t know.Never thought about it. Unthinking conformity.Think before you breed, and you might not.

I might regret not having had the experience later, when it’s too late.Fear of future worries and life passing too fast.We can’t experience everything. Far better to regret not breeding than to regret breeding

I do not want to deny my kids (who do not exist yet) the joy of existence.Ignoring lack of joy in existing children.Promote existence of joy rather than imagining joy in mere existence.

Procreation has traditionally been a source of personal empowerment for women.Feels powerless. Desires power and respect society appears to give to mothers and withholds from others.Mothers get more lip service than respect. Picking up family’s slack is not empowering. Seek self-defined sources of power.

Given that life serves no innate purpose, a rational person would choose not to reproduce because it can be rationally argued that procreation is unethical.

A child does not benefit by being brought into existence, because you can't deprive someone who doesn't exist. Once born, the child will experience negative states of existence (harm) and certain death. Some of these children/victims will experience the greatest horrors life has to offer, such as birth defects, childhood cancer, elephant man disease, severe mental illness or retardation, loss, tragic accidents, wars, the list is endless. Procreation is an imposition, a selfish act of aggression. You're gambling with someone else's welfare, and the risk is not yours to take.

Quote:

It's just what organisms do isn't it?

The human organism's high intelligence is able to transcend blind obedience to a DNA molecule or to dogma

Given that life serves no innate purpose, a rational person would choose not to reproduce because it can be rationally argued that procreation is unethical.

A child does not benefit by being brought into existence, because you can't deprive someone who doesn't exist. Once born, the child will experience negative states of existence (harm) and certain death. Some of these children/victims will experience the greatest horrors life has to offer, such as birth defects, childhood cancer, elephant man disease, severe mental illness or retardation, loss, tragic accidents, wars, the list is endless. Procreation is an imposition, a selfish act of aggression. You're gambling with someone else's welfare, and the risk is not yours to take.

Quote:

It's just what organisms do isn't it?

The human organism's high intelligence is able to transcend blind obedience to a DNA molecule or to dogma

You're forgetting that 99.99% (or more) of people are not purely and entirely rational. Thankfully.Here's to love, emotion and the joy of holding your own child in your arms. You have my sympathy.

The OP's logic is straightforward enough, if you accept the implicit premise of materialism. That is, if life is purely an artifact of matter and energy and physical laws, then it's a pointless and tragic. What does it matter what we do, when it will all be taken away shortly, leaving neither physical remnant nor memories?

Probably most people on this forum are techies (and of course I am too), so we believe in science and the honest observation of reality. I accept that what science tells us is true. We can observe and measure gravity; can we likewise observe and measure God? No, of course not. So it's easy and tempting to jump to the conclusion that all questions have materialistic explanations. But not so fast...

Can science completely explain the human condition? I say the answer is "No". A couple of things that science cannot explain are human consciousness and free will. If we're just a collection of stuff, then how or why did we "come awake"? Why aren't we just automatons, going through the motions like a rock rolling down a hill? And just as it can't be explained, consciousness cannot be measured; in fact you have no proof that anyone else is conscious other than yourself. To accept the consciousness of other human beings is actually a leap of faith. Think about that the next time you criticize a religious person for unsubstantiated faith.

And free will? The OP said the universe was deterministic, but actually that's not true. The Newtonian universe was deterministic, but quantum mechanics changed that view. We now understand that quantum events are governed by chance rather than cause-and-effect. Therefore, the foundation is reality is fluid rather than predetermined. However, statistical uncertainty does not allow for the phenomenon of free will, which would imply an effect without a cause. We subjectively experience free will, but the notion is contrary to science. So what's true? Some atheists argue that free will is merely an illusion. I understand the argument, but it seems to spring out of denial.

Leo Tolstoy wrote a compelling essay on his own struggle with the ideas posted by the OP. You can find this online or in books; the title is "A Confession". He speaks in detail of his own crisis of faith, and his subsequent slide into suicidal depression. His conclusion is that Man cannot survive without seeking a transcendental philosophy. I think that's true. My own need of that quest, plus my technical observations about the inadequacy of materialism, started me thinking about these things.

Since you seem interested in these matters, I think you would do well to expose yourself to more varied points of view.You've apparently been exposed to two competing idelogies fighting over your culture but there are free thinkers and a whole world of different cultures out there.

TalkinHorse wrote:

if you accept the implicit premise of materialism. That is, if life is purely an artifact of matter and energy and physical laws

That's more than materialism: that's physicalism. There is a middle-ground between monistic idealism and physicalism.I'm a materialist but not a physicalist, just like you I bet.The point is not to use the "right" words but the least confusing ones. Physicalism has been called materialism but lots of less extreme or even unrelated points of view have been called materialism as well.

TalkinHorse wrote:

The Newtonian universe was deterministic, but quantum mechanics changed that view. We now understand that quantum events are governed by chance rather than cause-and-effect. Therefore, the foundation is reality is fluid rather than predetermined.

That's one of the reasonable interpretations of QM, not a fact.

TalkinHorse wrote:

However, statistical uncertainty does not allow for the phenomenon of free will, which would imply an effect without a cause. We subjectively experience free will, but the notion is contrary to science. So what's true? Some atheists argue that free will is merely an illusion. I understand the argument, but it seems to spring out of denial.

You seem to be mixing up different ideas. Sometimes they go under the same name but you need to pay more attention to the context.Free will does not contradict the kind of determinism you can study scientifically (unless you take some unscientific assumptions for granted). People who argue along these lines are usually engaged in circular reasoning because their assumptions contradict free will to begin with.Free will is definitely not "contrary to science" (what kind of epistemology are you using?). It can resist scientific investigation without being an epiphenomenon. It can be an epiphenomenon without being illusory. It can be illusory without being superflous. None of this can be trivially ruled out or demonstrated. Physicalists might say these are mere disctinctions but according to other points of view, there are significant differences. Make sure you understand this before calling people denialists.There are also religions which profess determinism by the way.

If you were to replace the word "purpose" with something else your argument might make a little bit of sense, but we are part of "nature", and as you might/might not be aware "nature" does not have a "purpose"....

Thus your entire argument is not even moot, it is a question that cannot actually be asked - yet you are asking it. Its like asking a star why it is burning at the rate it does, why does it not "decide" to burn faster or slower to change its "purpose", that question is just as much bollocks as yours is, lets discuss that instead it makes as much sense to ask that question.

Come up with a real question that is answerable and I will give you an answer.

If you were to replace the word "purpose" with something else your argument might make a little bit of sense, but we are part of "nature", and as you might/might not be aware "nature" does not have a "purpose"....

Thus your entire argument is not even moot, it is a question that cannot actually be asked as it is.

Come up with a real question that is answerable and I will give you an answer.

Andy

Just because there are questions that are unanswerable in a definitive way (why am I here?, where am I going?, what is the meaning of life?) does not mean they are rubbish, it just means there may not be any final answers that we can achieve in this life, and certainly not one that can be apprehended by reason alone (as Immanuel Kant point out long ago).

"Human reason has this peculiar fate [Schicksal] that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer."-- Immanuel Kant, Preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason.

However, statistical uncertainty does not allow for the phenomenon of free will, which would imply an effect without a cause. We subjectively experience free will, but the notion is contrary to science. So what's true? Some atheists argue that free will is merely an illusion. I understand the argument, but it seems to spring out of denial.

You seem to be mixing up different ideas. Sometimes they go under the same name but you need to pay more attention to the context.Free will does not contradict the kind of determinism you can study scientifically (unless you take some unscientific assumptions for granted). People who argue along these lines are usually engaged in circular reasoning because their assumptions contradict free will to begin with.Free will is definitely not "contrary to science" (what kind of epistemology are you using?). It can resist scientific investigation without being an epiphenomenon. It can be an epiphenomenon without being illusory. It can be illusory without being superflous. None of this can be trivially ruled out or demonstrated. Physicalists might say these are mere disctinctions but according to other points of view, there are significant differences. Make sure you understand this before calling people denialists.There are also religions which profess determinism by the way.

I agree with HFat here. There are many reasonable interpretations of free will that are not mutually exclusive with science as we currently know it.

Personally, I am perfectly fine to believe that my experience of free will is an emergent property of brain complexity (i.e. deterministic and stochastic processes in the brain). Maybe that doesn't jive with most definitions of free will, but I doubt anyone will ever be able to create a machine that can predict with full determinism anyone's choices. At best, they may be able to come up with an optimal stochastic model, but who is to say it is "actual randomness" and not "free will" that is determining the outcome? It's not like you can observe the other universes where my free will / cosmic coin flip swung the other way...

Just because there are questions that are unanswerable in a definitive way (why am I here?, where am I going?, what is the meaning of life?) does not mean they are rubbish, it just means there may not be any final answers that we can achieve in this life, and certainly not one that can be apprehended by reason alone

The answer to the classic "why am I here" questions can be answered, however the answer will take longer to compile with any detail than it will take for that life to end.

In a very simple way here I go (forgive me for any obvious missing steps).

Big-Bang, stars go supernova, some of that supernova material groups together, our star is born with some of that ex-supernova material - called earth, chemistry produces pre-life material, RNA or something similar evolves, DNA evolves from RNA, complex life begins to evolve, humans evolve, 2 people meet up and have sex, you are born, THE END.

That is why "you are here" in a very basic description, that is also why I am here (but with different parents).

As you see that question is very answerable, the "purpose" of you or me cannot be answered anywhere near as easily as that, and I will continue to argue that the word "purpose" in this example is used specifically by god-fearing nutters, so that they can persuade other people to fear-dog and by definition "be nutty". It is one of those questions that is designed to be unanswerable by anyone who DOES NOT believe in the super-natural - and those that do make up some shit because god told them that they "must have a purpose".

No human being that has ever been born has a "purpose" in that context at all. In a slightly different context it amazingly simply to answer and goes back to RNA (or whatever it was that evolved from a chemical soup - or whatever it evolved from), RNA and DNA do one single thing exceptionally well - they create identical copies of themselves - that is their "purpose" to reproduce. That is the most basic and only true answer to the non-religious "purpose" question.

The answer to the classic "why am I here" questions can be answered, however the answer will take longer to compile with any detail than it will take for that life to end.

In a very simple way here I go (forgive me for any obvious missing steps).

Big-Bang, stars go supernova, some of that supernova material groups together, our star is born with some of that ex-supernova material - called earth, chemistry produces pre-life material, RNA or something similar evolves, DNA evolves from RNA, complex life begins to evolve, humans evolve, 2 people meet up and have sex, you are born, THE END.

That is why "you are here" in a very basic description, that is also why I am here (but with different parents).

As you see that question is very answerable, the "purpose" of you or me cannot be answered anywhere near as easily as that, and I will continue to argue that the word "purpose" in this example is used specifically by god-fearing nutters, so that they can persuade other people to fear-dog and by definition "be nutty". It is one of those questions that is designed to be unanswerable by anyone who DOES NOT believe in the super-natural - and those that do make up some shit because god told them that they "must have a purpose".

No human being that has ever been born has a "purpose" in that context at all. In a slightly different context it amazingly simply to answer and goes back to RNA (or whatever it was that evolved from a chemical soup - or whatever it evolved from), RNA and DNA do one single thing exceptionally well - they create identical copies of themselves - that is their "purpose" to reproduce. That is the most basic and only true answer to the non-religious "purpose" question.

Andy

You say that the world exists because of the Big Bang (probably correct on one superficial level), but you have not answered the question as to "why" the Big Bang happened, or if it was created by some preceding physical process, why was that created?

Any claim that you know "why" (or could know with additional scientific study) is a something that in my view cannot be substantiated. That is what Kant pointed out his revolution of philosophy a few hundred years ago. So I am more than a bit skeptical when you claim to be able to know "why" (even if given enough time), when so many other well-known and respected atheists and agnostics do not claim to have any such knowledge, nor do they believe it is possible to acquire it (as mentioned by Kant, it is beyond the ability of reason to answer these questions).

I do agree with you that any one individual person probably does not exist for any unique purpose (other than the same purpose that everyone and everything else exists). But I personally don't know that for sure. It is possible that the universe as we know it in its entirety was created for some reason (or purpose), and is not a random event (which just seems very unlikely to me, based solely on scientific grounds).

but you have not answered the question as to "why" the Big Bang happened, or if it was created by some preceding physical process, why was that created?

I don't have to, and we will likely never know, our ancestors might, but there is a good chance that they will never will know. That is a much better un-answerable question, as yet there are only "theorems" that's like a "theory" to people who can't read a dictionary - there is no single definitive answer - and as I say we may never know, we as in "the human species".

I don't have to, and we will likely never know, our ancestors might, but there is a good chance that they will never will know. That is a much better un-answerable question, as yet there are only "theorems" that's like a "theory" to people who can't read a dictionary - there is no single definitive answer - and as I say we may never know, we as in "the human species".

Does that keep you awake at night.?

Andy

No, does not keep me awake at night. I agree that we will never know (at least not by your definition of "knowledge"). But just because I don't know something, doesn't mean it does not exist.

At best, they may be able to come up with an optimal stochastic model, but who is to say it is "actual randomness" and not "free will" that is determining the outcome? It's not like you can observe the other universes where my free will / cosmic coin flip swung the other way...

Well, if a model based on physical properties could actually predict with decent statistical significance the behaviour of a population you'd have a pretty good case against some types of free will.Of course I don't expect it would be possible to develop such a model so the point is a mere thought experiment, useful only to delineate different theories of free will.

I don't think it's useful to pit randomness against free will.Some rather naive theories about free will may exclude randomness but I think nowadays all materialists would agree that their experience of free will has got be underpinned by a number of chaotic if not fundamentally random processes they are not conscious of.

The burden of proof whether procreation is ethical is on the pro-natal lobby. I'm now going to try and present two anti-natal arguments as clearly and succinctly as possible.

The benatarian argument

1. Those who have never existed cannot be deprived.

2. The argument applies not only to humans but also to all other sentient beings.

3. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her.

4. Hence existence always constitutes a net harm.

5. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely.

6. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none. Sentient existence comes at a significant cost.

7. Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.

The imposition argument

1. A child is a separate entity to you, with its own rights.

2. You have the choice whether or not to have children.

3. Before you have the child, there is no way to ask it if it wants to live. It cannot weigh the options, understanding the costs and benefits.

4. Therefore, having a child means that you have voluntarily forced life onto a new, separate entity, without its consent.

5. There is a small but statistically significant risk that the child's life will not be worth living, and the child will wish it had never been born.

6. There is no way in this instance for the child to get a refund and reverse the suffering it has been through. The damage cannot be undone.

7. Therefore, it is irresponsible to have a child, because it is an unnecessary gamble with another person's welfare, forced onto them without consent and without a way to be compensated in the event that it goes horribly wrong.

It makes sense at a totally rational level - but only withing the parameters of what it talks about.

A number of the points in the argument fall to pieces when you look at human beings themselves rather than this interesting argument that is totally void of "humanity", the argument could easily be talking about any species on the planet. Humans, due to evolution have needs wants and desires that change as we go through our lives, these needs, wants and desires are very different to a child compared to an adult - but they all have one thing in common - we cannot control many of these needs, wants and desires - they are programmed into our brains or controlled by glands and hormones.

Take a look at social interactions - these can heavily influence and change us, just as we as individuals can influence and change those around us, you only have to look at religion - every child is born free of religion, then these bullshit ideas are inserted into the child's mind like a virus of untruth along with all of the truth that is fed to the child, this knowledge and lies are considered the same to a child, as children will believe anything that they are told by an older authoritative person e.g. parents and other older relatives, teachers, scout leaders, and priests (liars).

All of the points above are avoided by "The benatarian argument", the reason is obvious - it is an argument created by a lobbyist that has a single purpose and that is to peddle their perspective as the truth - they wouldn't know the truth if it kicked them in the balls, what you need to do is have a look at the other side of the argument, or at least listen to some scientists who know what makes "humans" tick.

Quote:

The imposition argument

This is a much less convincing argument that is again totally void of "humanity" and all of those needs wants and desires.

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